


I Know My Love

by randi2204



Category: Lord of the Rings (2001 2002 2003)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-21
Updated: 2011-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-17 04:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randi2204/pseuds/randi2204
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Down the years of her life with Faramir, Éowyn discovers many things about him... and about herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Know My Love

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by JoAnn's comments regarding my offering for 1sentence on Boromir and Faramir.
> 
> Disclaimer: All Professor Tolkien’s, not mine.

Hesitantly, Éowyn stepped from the arched doorway into the wild garden.  Even after a half a year, she was still not entirely sure of her way around the many corridors, sudden turnings and abrupt gardens that seemed to make up the city’s sixth level.  She had wandered into the grounds of several private residences in the past months, and though she knew none begrudged her presence, she still felt awkward.  For someone used to wide plains and gently rolling hills scoured by the wind, Minas Tirith was a cold and bewildering maze of stone.

 

 _Surely, though_ , she thought, taking another step, _I have been here before?_

 

Just around the first bend of the path, she came upon her husband, and the sight of him let her relax slightly.  He sat upon his cloak beneath a tree, a book cradled in his hands.  But he was not reading; he was staring straight ahead, at the greenery and ancient wall opposite, the book forgotten.

 

The expression he wore had become quite familiar to her, even over the few months of their marriage.  His face was pinched, as if he were in some kind of physical pain, and she had an incredible sense of . . . of _yearning_ when she looked at him.  The blue eyes were fixed on some distant scene only he could see, and while a smile hinted at the corner of his mouth, it was tinged with sorrow.  It touched her heart.

 

 _Maybe . . . I can now offer him the comfort he had once given me?_

 

“Faramir?” Softly, she called to him, letting her feet crunch on the gravel of the path, letting her gown whisper against the stones.

 

He looked up at her and smiled warmly.  “Éowyn.”  Immediately, he stood and stretched out one hand to her, as if to draw her closer.

 

When their hands touched, she thought she felt him shiver.

 

“However did you find this place?” Faramir asked when they had settled onto his cloak.  “I shouldn’t have thought that there were any alive save me who recalled it even existed.”

 

Though his words were mild, even curious, in tone, they still stung.  She felt, quite suddenly, that she had intruded upon his solitude, though she had only intended . . . Trying to keep her hurt from her tone, she replied, “And none save you remember the way hence.”  When he was silent, she looked up, and saw the blank expression he wore.  Smiling a little, she said, “I was wandering lost.  This place looked familiar at first, though now I can see that it is not.”

 

His face cleared, and he gave her a sympathetic look.  “Yes, it is rather like a maze, isn’t it?”  Leaning back beside her, propping himself on his elbows, he said, his voice very soft, “This was my mother’s garden.  When I was young, my brother and I often came here to play.  He told me often that before my mother died, we would come out here—my mother and father, my brother and I—to take a meal, and then Mother would sing, or Father would play at dragons with us . . .”

 

That wistful smile curved his lips again, and the words he spoke made her breathless, for he had not yet shared that much of his past with her.  But he brushed his melancholy aside before she could do more than cover his hand with hers.  “I’m glad that you were able to find your way here,” he told her, eyes clear and solemn.

 

The shadows were long before they left Finduilas’ garden.  When at last he noted the lengthening twilight, he sighed and stood, then bent to help her rise.  “I’ll show you the turnings to take so that you can return here when you wish without getting lost.”

 

Shyly, she smiled and nodded as she gathered up his cloak.  “I’d like that very much.”

 

He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and shortened his stride to accommodate her skirts.  She listened eagerly as he explained the path to take.

 

Perhaps . . . perhaps the sorrow she saw in his eyes was only the lingering grief he bore for his brother; perhaps it was not regret that he had bound himself to her.

 

***

Studying her reflection in the silvery glass, she pressed one finger gingerly to her swollen lips, and winced as the pain flared.

 

Looking around quickly just to make sure, although she knew she was alone, she opened her dressing gown, allowing it to slither off, down the length of her body, and cringed again.  The bruises were lividly purple against the pale skin of her shoulders and arms, and reddened bite marks followed the dip of her collarbone, the curve of her breasts.

 

 _Growling deep in his throat, he bit sharply on the wing of her collarbone, pressing her into the mattress with his weight.  She gasped and thrashed beneath him at the unexpected pain, but her slight weight could not shift him . . ._

 

She felt her face heating as she remembered, and pressed one hand to her cheek.

 

 _He moved lower against her, nipping not-quite-savagely at her breasts, his hands hot against her waist, her hips.  When one hand reached her womanhood, she moaned, unable to hold back, and parted her legs willingly.  A moment’s hesitation, and then his fingers delved inside her . . ._

 

Closing her eyes, she shivered, but no longer felt the chill air of the bedchamber against her bare flesh.

 

 _He bucked, thrusting in her almost wildly, his fingers curling up over her shoulders, digging into her arms.  Her nails raked his back, his chest, wherever she could reach as he rode her, and his impassioned growls were loud in her ear . . ._

 

There was still a pleasant, tingling _ache_ in the passage of her sex.

 

 _Then, as ever it did, the wave of pleasure burst outward, centered on her loins but radiating in an instant to wrack her whole body, make it tense as she whimpered and groaned in reaction.  With a guttural cry, he spent, shuddering atop her, head thrown back in abandon.  For several moments, he held himself above her, panting and shaking, and then he simply collapsed upon her, driving her breath from her and burying his face in her neck._

 

A sudden rattling of crockery in the corridor startled her back to the present.  Cheeks still aflame, now at the thought of being seen like this, she hurried to her clothes chest and pawed through it, searching for the gown she knew was there.  The neckline was high enough to hide the evidence of her husband’s passion, except for the merest hint of one bruise, a bit further up on her throat.

 

The gown cascaded over her in a shower of blue-grey silk and velvet, the color of ice, the color of her eyes.  She was making a pretense of fumbling with the buttons in the back when the maid appeared.

 

It was some hours later before Éowyn had the luxury of time to herself once more.  Seated in the deep embrasure of a window in their bedchamber, she leant her head against the stone, staring out at the activity below without really seeing it.

 

As always, she wondered.  She could not stop herself.

 

Ever did Faramir behave with only gentleness and courtesy to her.  On those occasions—rare indeed—when he was wroth, he never transferred his anger to her, as she knew some men of Rohan would have done.

 

Even in their marriage bed, he treated her tenderly, holding her at times as if she were a delicate flower he feared to break.  She frowned at that, for it created a false idea, painting their marriage as loveless, passionless.  _No, never that_ , she thought, her frown melting away.  _But . . . perhaps not wholly honest, either.  Guarded.  Restrained._

 

As if he were afraid what would happen if he relaxed his discipline . . . or was forcibly reminding himself not to.

 

 _And when he forgets . . ._ She ran her fingers lightly over her lips, still a bit sore to the touch.

 

Last night was not the first time he had forgotten himself, not the first time he had come to her roughly, almost without care for her fragile skin.  His unexpected fervor—his unbridled desire—was . . . intoxicating, and so very different.

 

And she burned with shame, but those were the nights she most enjoyed.

 

This morning, as with all the others, she had woken late and alone, Faramir’s side of the bed grown cold, left to marvel at her husband’s passion, left in doubt as to with whom he had coupled.

 

It was a sobering reminder; though they had grown close in only a short time, she had married a man she’d known hardly at all, and for all the seasons of their marriage, often she felt she still did not.

 

From the first, she had suspected that there was someone in her husband’s past that he had loved too deeply, that the loss of this other was the cause of his . . . constraint around her, his careful ardor in their bed, the sorrowful look he often wore when lost in thought.  When they returned to Minas Tirith from Ithilien— _when he returned to where he had loved this other,_ she reflected thoughtfully—was most often when nights like that just gone would occur.

 

 _Perhaps . . . another reason why I sometimes long to return here . . ._

 

Long ago, Éowyn had accepted that the first man she had loved did not love her in return, but still she wondered if she loved him because of who he _was_ or because he had represented escape . . . and if there was truly any difference, for love was love.

 

 _But . . ._   She closed her eyes and felt her cheeks heat, even as her fingers drifted over her lips, the hidden evidence of Faramir’s loss of control.  _It is wrong . . ._

 

For last night, and on other nights like it, she had imagined that it was not her husband who held her, who took her with such forceful abandon, but her _own_ other, the man she had first loved.

 

The door opened, and she jumped at the sound, her hand hovering over her breastbone.  Already sure of what she would see, she turned toward the door, smiling in welcome, swinging her feet out of the window seat to the floor.

 

Faramir stood just inside the doorway, the coronet that marked him the Prince of Ithilien in his hands.  His face was pale against his dark tunic, making his hair seem even brighter than it normally was, and his eyes . . .

 

Her smiled died half-formed on her lips.  _His eyes . . . I’ve never seen such pain in them, such . . ._ Instantly, she stood, reaching out to him.  “Faramir!  Is aught wrong?”

 

  

  1. Then he knelt at her feet, his head bowed to rest against her waist, and his arms wrapped around her hips.
  



 

Shocked, she wavered, thrown even further off balance, and felt his arms tighten around her to keep her upright.  “Faramir?  What . . .”

 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, the words muffled.  “Last night . . . Éowyn, I’m so sorry . . .”

 

She closed her eyes briefly.  This remorse, too, was familiar, as was the shame pricking her conscience, stinging sharper than the bruises already starting to fade.  She bent her head, and threaded her fingers carefully through his hair.  “There is nothing to forgive,” she murmured, smoothing his tumbled curls, stroking his brow, and she was able to smile brightly at him when he looked up at her, his bright blue eyes rimmed damply with red.

 

If two wrongs were committed, one against the other, was there, in truth, anything to forgive?

 

***

For a short time, Éowyn had wracked her memory, vainly trying to recall if it had been a night filled with Faramir’s unexpectedly fierce desire—and her own dishonorable thoughts—that caused the gentle swell of her belly.  In the end, though, she decided that it did not matter; it was enough that after so long, she was finally with child.

 

Faramir had not worried, in the years of their marriage, that she had not conceived a child.  When it first became apparent that she had, however, he was ever at her elbow, mothering her until she was tempted to scream in frustration.

 

Indeed, her temper, already short, had gotten the better of her more than once at his coddling, and hot words had passed her lips.  She then had the dubious pleasure of watching as he recovered from the shock.  Eventually, he stopped trying to monitor her every moment, for which she was profoundly grateful.

 

At least, he stopped _personally_ watching her. The new serving girls and ladies to wait upon her were simply less obvious about it.

 

They had traveled to Minas Tirith before her pregnancy had far progressed, and though she knew he longed for his heir to be born in Ithilien, Faramir was reluctant to let her return thence.  She, too, wanted their first child to come into the world in the woods she had learned to love, and she did not think there would be any danger in going home, as long as they did it soon.

 

She found she no longer cared to journey to Minas Tirith, that her heart was bound more tightly in Ithilien.

 

She paused in her restless pacing, glancing out the nearest window at the bright sky.  _And . . . there are other reasons as well._   She closed her eyes at the thought, and absently ran one hand over her rounded stomach.

 

When she had told Faramir she suspected she was with child, his reaction had surprised and thrilled her.  His eyes had lit up, glowing and happy, and his smile—oh, he had _beamed_ at her, a smile of such joy as she had never seen grace his handsome features. 

 

And she had thought—hoped and wished!—that he had been healed, that the pain he had borne alone and in silence since before they were wed had finally been sloughed away, that she had at last brought him the happiness he deserved.

 

Even though after that Faramir treated her like spun glass, it still couldn’t diminish the pleasure she had taken in his own delight.  Often, while she rested in bed, or tried her hand at sewing small clothes for their child, he would sit beside her, content to abandon his duties for a time and simply keep her company.

 

That companionship meant more to her than she had ever thought it would.

 

But Minas Tirith was a place of sorrow as well as joy for Faramir.  Éowyn knew this, and still she was shocked when she had come upon him unawares and saw that he was again reliving some painful memory, his eyes swimming with unshed tears.  She realized then that she had not healed him after all.

 

 _Perhaps I never can._

 

But, in Ithilien, at least he was not surrounded by memories of that one he had loved before her, and he saw _her_ , not that other.

 

 _I want that,_ she thought suddenly, _I want him to see_ me _, not whoever he loved before . . ._

 

 _I want him to love_ me.

 

That thought shocked her.

 

“Éowyn?”

 

She jumped at the sound of her name, and turned.  She smiled when she saw her husband behind her, because he was wearing a look that combined his tender feelings for her with exasperation, and it was most endearing. “Yes?”

 

His hands closed warm about her shoulders.  “Shouldn’t you be resting?” he asked, and his voice was low with concern.

 

Indeed, she should have been, and cast a guilty look at the bed, barely mussed.  Then the reason for her pacing made himself known once again, and she grinned up at him in a manner that many would have called cheeky.  “And I would have done, my lord, but your son has apparently decided that the best way to get work out of this mare is to dig his heels into her sides.  He’s been kicking all the day.”  When Faramir burst out laughing, she mock-scowled down at the bulge of their child and went on, “For a descendent of Eorl, there is much you do not know about handling horses, young man.”

 

When she looked up again, his eyes were glinting at her, deeply blue and content, and she was forced to wonder if the anguish she had seen was still lurking behind them, or if it was even there at all.  Caught up as she was in studying his face, she was surprised when he cupped her own in his hands. 

 

“My lady,” he said, smiling fondly, thumbs brushing her cheeks, and in those words was a wealth of emotion that sent warmth all through her.  “I do apologize for diluting the blood and knowledge of the Rohirrim.”

 

She laughed then, covering his hands with her smaller ones, and tried to forget that he had a past that she did not share.

 

***

He was dying.

 

Composed, Éowyn sat on the wide bed, her fingers lightly entwined with those of her husband, listening to him labor for each breath.

 

The fever had taken hold with surprising swiftness, for Faramir was still hale, though no longer young despite the blood of Númenor in his veins.  It settled in his lungs, and drained his life, stealing him away with each painful gasp for air.

 

He was dying, and nothing could stay death’s hand now—no medicine in the Houses of Healing, no physician’s skill, not even the healing hands of the King.

 

Aragorn sat on Faramir’s other side, and Éowyn could hear him urging his friend to continue breathing, to defy the fate that had taken hold of him.

 

 _He is suffering!_ she wanted to cry.  _Can you not see?  Has he not suffered enough?_ But she curbed her tongue, and sat wordless, watching her hand as it ran through Faramir’s sweat-damp hair, grey-shot locks curling and tangling about her fingers.

 

In a moment of defiance, when Aragorn was called away, she leant down to whisper in her husband’s ear.  “Let go, Faramir.  You have fulfilled your duties, and now you may rest.”

 

But though his pale lips twitched at the sound of her voice, he still fought, clinging to life.

 

She did not know how much time had passed since she had tried to release him with her words, but at last Faramir smiled, and it was that smile that she had only rarely seen him wear, the one that twisted her heart and nearly reduced her to tears with its beauty.  Soundlessly, his mouth shaped a name.  He released a shallow breath and did not take another.

 

Aragorn bowed his head.  Gently, Éowyn passed her hand over Faramir’s eyes, already dulling in death, and began chanting quietly in her own tongue.

 

Her eyes were dry, not because she did not grieve at his passing, but because he was free of pain, and that was not something to mourn.

 

When she ended her chant, Aragorn rose.  Without looking at him, her eyes still fixed on Faramir’s face, she spoke, her voice very soft.  “My lord, tell me, if you can, the name he tried to call.”

 

She knew well it was not hers.

 

In the same tone, Aragorn replied, “’Twas that of his brother, Boromir.”  After a moment of thunderous silence, she heard the sound of retreating footsteps and the soft closing of the door.

 

She bent her head, cursing the foolish curiosity that had led her to ask that question.  She had thought only to find out the name of the one her husband had so long loved in the shadows of memory, for what harm could it do now?

 

 _What harm indeed._

 

She had no doubt her husband had loved her, but she also knew that she was never first in his heart.  For many years, she had accepted it as only fair, for he had not always been first in hers.

 

Only now did she discover that she had been wrong, that she had given him the whole of her heart without knowing, without expectation of return.  Only now did she find that his heart had been lost, swept down Anduin to the sea in his brother’s body many years ago.

 

Éowyn lowered her head until it rested upon Faramir’s shoulder, wound her hands in the fabric of his shirt, and wept.

 

***

February 6, 2006


End file.
